ECOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT.

Could not participate in the march for one day due to Polit Bureau meeting at Delhi. Com. E P Jayarajan who held the responsibility of the Leader of the march was speaking when rejoined the march by 9.30 on saturday night. It was the first meeting in Ernakulam district at Angamaly. The ground was fully crowded even when the last speaker was delivering his address. When the attack of the enemies and the people coming forward to defend the party ignoring every thing were mentioned, the response of the audience was highly emotional. The declaration of the people by raising slogans that the party cannot be humbled by any force can be described as only awe inspiring. The participation of these party loving people in lakhs exhibits the strength of the party it has acquired in the past. New forms of reception was arranged for the march in Ernakulam district. The workers were found active and enthusiastic. The same was the case with Thrissur district also. Each of the reception on sunday commencing at Parur and ending at Rajendra Maidan was different from the other. Any body can witness the fact that the people are vigorously aligning with the party ignoring all the interventions and false accusations made against it.
The most of the area covered on Sunday was that undergoing very fast urbanisation. There are two sides for urbanisation. While converting the ecosystem to suit the needs of the people, any intervention without taking into account its peculiarities and the sustainability will result in its destruction. It will lead to the disaster of the mankind who is dependent on the ecosystem for all its needs. This is the communist outlook on environmental problems. Hence preservation of the ecosystem is very much an integral part of the communist agenda. It is with this approach that the the CPI(M) program is addressing this issue. The ecological problems arising out of urbanisation deserves important consideration.
Development is possible only by intervening and using the ecosystem. Therefore, man cannot advance without intervening in nature. The formal approach to preservation of environment that it cannot be touched is against the development of society itself. This also should be taken into account. We cannot take a stand that nothing shall be done. Instead, the ecological impact of each such intervention has to be studied and what is not detrimental to the ecosystem is to be selected. Such a compromise between the environment and development is essential.
The problems faced by the environment is not something that can be addressed by verbosity and showmanship. The relation between man and nature has been subjected to widespread study. Some nature lovers accuse that these issues are alien to marxism and that such problems cannot be explained by theory of class struggle.
Marxists view man as part of nature. While animals live accustomed to the nature man tries to transform it to suit his needs. The tools of labour helps him for this. Animals are unable to produce tools. But man is capable of producing tools and transforming nature to suit his needs. Man ascended each step of advancement by applying the labour on the nature using the tools. It is the quality of tools that bettered the life of people at all stages. The mankind advanced from slave society to the present socialist society side by side with the development of tools from bow and arrows to the computer. As part of this the society could ascend the steps of civilisation unlike the animals.
It is impossible to produce the necessities to meet the needs of the society without establishing industries and other production systems. Industrial development can be found essential to the advancement of society. Therefore, formal environmentalism is against the advancement of society. What is essential is a policy taking into account the requirements of advancement of society and the sustenance of the environment. Both the policy, based on mere environmentalism and the slogan of industrialisation without taking into account the question of environment are detrimental. The development program is to be formulated taking into account the possibilities and environmental attributes of the locality. As in other areas, it is the intervention of capitalism in its mad race for profit that has caused the problems and crisis to the ecosystem of any region. It can be seen that United States of America is behind the greatest ever environmental crisis. US is not prepared to change its course despite the world opinion. Many environmental problems have come up in Kerala. The threat posed by plastic, problems of drinking water, problems arising out of e-waste, atmospheric pollution etc are very serious.
CPI(M) is viewing the issues of environment with a scientific approach aimed at the development of the region. This is why party and the LDF is able to face these problems in its proper perspective. When the slogans raised by the Nava Kerala March is assessed in its broad perspective, the environmental problems are serious ones.